Indus Valley Civilization Could Be Much Older Than We Thought

Archaeologists studying the Bhirrana site in Haryana, have found evidence that the beginning of the Indus Valley Civilisation, also known as the Harappan civilisation, may go back nearly 8,000 years, which would mean it is older than ancient Egypt’s dynasties, which began around 3100 BC.

The civilisation’s previously accepted timeline was around 2600 BC, but using radiocarbon dating on pottery fragments and animal remains they have found at the site, Archaeological Survey of India and other institutions found evidence of human settlement dating far earlier than that.

The Harappan civilisation once stretched across large parts of modern-day Pakistan and north-west India. “In recent years excavation at Rakhigarhi and few other places indicate that the civilization probably was more expansive than thought before,” says the new research, titled “Oxygen isotope in archaeological bioapatites from India: Implications to climate change and decline of Bronze Age Harappan civilization”.

“While the first two phases were represented by pastoral and early village farming communities, the mature Harappan settlements were highly urbanized with several organized cities, developed material and craft culture having trans-Asiatic trading to regions as distant as Arabia and Mesopotamia. The late Harappan phase witnessed large-scale deurbanization, population decrease, abandonment of many established settlements, lack of basic amenities, interpersonal violence and disappearance of Harappan script,” it adds.